General Secretary for the 3rd Respondents, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has virtually succeeded in collapsing the case of the respondents as he has either supported the claims of the petitioners or ended up contradicting himself badly on the claims of the respondents which he was in the witness box to defend.

Asiedu Nketia, also known as General Mosquito, who had based most of his evidence on the case of the 1st and 3rd respondents that due to the presence of polling agents at the various polling stations, the irregularities being claimed by the petitioners were doubtful, quickly admitted, rather surprisingly, during cross examination that the agents didn’t have the capacity to direct affairs at the polling stations and that presiding officers could not be compelled to do the right thing even after it had been noticed by the polling agent.

In answering a question from Lawyer Philip Addison on why the agents of the NDC who Mr. Asiedu Nketia had earlier claimed to be so well trained, could not notice the failure of the presiding officers to sign the Pink Sheets, which was clearly against a constitutional provision, he stated “My lords, the agents cannot direct the presiding officer on what to do. They cannot compel the presiding officer to sign. All they can do is to protest and the Presiding officer can decide whether to listen to them or to ignore their protests.”

Mr. Asiedu Nketia proceeded to admit that whether polling agents sign or not, the results at the particular polling station would be declared despite earlier claiming that because the results were signed by the polling agents, it necessarily meant that the petitioners had accepted the results to be valid and it was for that reason that the results were declared and factored into the collation.

Again on Tuesday, Mr. Asiedu Nketia was clearly exposed when after stating boldly that the Electoral Commission had provided a provisional register to the political parties, he was compelled to admit that the C.I. 72 clearly detailed the form in which the provisional register should come which was clearly different from daily printouts which Mr. Asiedu Nketia claimed were compiled to give a provisional register.

Matters got worse for Mr. Asiedu Nketia on Wednesday when he was confronted with hard facts against claims he had made in his affidavit which forced him to make several admissions and contradict himself further.

Mr. Asiedu Nketia, who had boldly told the court on Tuesday that the serial number on the pink sheets were neither identifiers of the polling stations nor security features and that what matters is the name and code of polling stations, on Wednesday had to shift goal posts from his position a day earlier when he also discounted the importance of the polling station name and code and said that what mattered were what he termed as “physical locations” of the polling stations.

The NDC General Secretary’s new found insistence on the importance of so called “physical locations” came when he was confronted with the issue of unknown polling stations which he had claimed in his affidavit had their names and codes wrongly quoted by the petitioners.

However, when he was confronted with questions on whether the names and codes quoted by the petitioners were exactly what was on the pink sheet, Mr. Asiedu Nketia admitted that the petitioners were right per what was on the pink sheets but quickly shifted to say that what was important was not the name or code but the physical location of the polling stations.

Still on the list of unknown polling stations, lawyer for the petitioners, Lawyer Philip Addison pointed to Mr. Asiedu Nketia that some of the details of polling stations (name and code) he claimed were the correct details for the unknown polling stations were not in the list of polling stations provided by the Electoral Commission but Mr. Asiedu Nketia who had deposed to these details in his affidavit stated that he could not confirm the details in the witness box.

Asked whether he was aware that the Electoral Commission could not create new polling stations forty-two (42) days to the elections, Mr. Asiedu Nketia, who had claimed over 34 years of experience in electoral matters, stated that he was not aware of that provision and that he was not aware because he was not a lawyer.

On his claim that the petitioners had shown bad faith because all the polling stations included in the list of 11,138 polling stations being challenged by the petitioners were polling stations won by John Mahama as he had stated in his evidence in chief, Mr. Asiedu Nketia quickly shifted position to say that what he meant was technical and that only about a hundred polling stations out of the 11,138 polling stations were won by Nana Akufo-Addo and that it accounted for less than 20,000 votes out of the 4.3million votes the petitioners were seeking to get annulled.

However, when lawyer Philip Addison pointed out to Mr. Asiedu Nketia that actually 1,031 polling stations in the list of 11,138 were won by Nana Akufo-Addo, Mr. Asiedu Nketia stated that he could not confirm that, prompting Counsel Philip Addison to question why he was so bold stating numbers even though he hadn’t checked the facts of the case.

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